Travel to Port Macquarie, Australia with Nasreen

After our stay-over in Warner’s Bay we continued onto Port Macquarie. My trusty Samsung map and navigation app delivered again. The mini laptop I carried was freezing up so much that I was just about fed up with it. And I entered ‘nearest Apple Shop’ and it pointed to Charlestown. We drove to it. And bought myself an Apple MacBook Air 11 inches.



So now we all know that my Mac mini is from the Charleston Square shopping mall. Had a lovely guy serve me who did discounts and made up a proper tax invoice so I could get vat refund on my way back.

Tip: When buying expensive items overseas, make sure to find out if you could get tax refunds at the airport and then get proper documentation.

 

My Australian experience: I searched online for tax refunds and they had an app. I downloaded it to my Samsung mobile and entered the tax invoice number. The app did all the work. I just had to show it to the Vat Refund Counter at the International Departures after we go through customs. And voila! The refund went to the Visa Debit card I had specified.

[caption id="attachment_206" align="alignright" width="300"] Back home I use a Laptop and a desktop simultaneously for work.[/caption]

 

Getting back onto the motorway we followed my Samsung mobile phone’s map app and drove to the address I had specified.

Port Macquarie is a town at the mouth of Hastings River in the state of New South Wales. Its mostly popular for its penal colony past…convicts settled there. St Thomas’s Anglican Church was built by convicts in the 19^th Century.

 

We had family to visit to we went straight to the address I was given. This was our first trip out of Sydney driving ourselves. But luckily my trusty navigation held.

 

The town centre just next to the sea is beautiful. With big hotels and good restaurants. There is a Westfields Shopping Mall. We had coffee and cupcakes in the foodhall of the mall.

 

We drove to the Tracking Point Lighthouse. The views from here are really great. But it was a fairly windy day too.

 

Overall a great experience and would love to go there again soon.

 

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